


Notes on Saenia

by Quillori



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, in universe meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 07:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13993389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori
Summary: Extracts from various documents relating to Saenian, covering some 400 Standard Years.





	Notes on Saenia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heeroluva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeroluva/gifts).



In many ways, Saenia is one of the must beautiful, and the most unsettling, planets in the RF-82 region. Originally intended for habitation, due to its near-Earthlike conditions, only one base was constructed before the passing of Natural Planetary Reserves Act halted construction. Today there is limited potential for tourism, and some commercial harvesting of indigenous fruits for the luxury ‘planet-grown’ market, but otherwise it receives little attention. For those, however, who can afford one of the few landing permits, and have the time and resources for the somewhat arduous journey, Saenia is likely to be an unforgettable experience: so nearly familiar, and yet clearly alien in a way no terraformed planet can be.  
extract from _The QD to SH Regions: A Complete Planetary Guide_

Come diving in the seas of Saenia! Some of the most extensive reefs known to survive surround the scattered archipelagos of this largely marine world. Explore the fascinating sea-life. Marvel at the towering structures of the reefs. Watch the sun set across a phosphorescent sea. Recapture the romance of the early days of spacefaring, when every planet was alien and unknown, with its own strange beauty.  
an advertisement for the tourist centre in New Morizia Dome, Saenia

08.50  
Self Sealing Microbial Mats: Explore how spherical Saenian microbial mats co-exist with burrowing lifeforms. Research performed here on Saenia has been the basis for several important advances in early-stage terraforming biotech.

09.50  
Cellular Aggregation and Osmotrophy: Osmosis is generally inefficient as a feeding strategy for larger organisms. But loose aggregates of single celled organisms can behave in many ways like a single creature - growing, moving, reproducing and even appearing to learn - while still benefiting from this type of nutrient intake.

10.50  
Communication and Co-operation at a Cellular Level: how do individual unicellular organisms work together as though though were a single creature? There will also be a brief consideration of the little understood Saenian preponderance of simple multicellular organisms which can assemble and aggregate in the same manner as social amoeba. 

13.00  
From the Very Small to the Very Large: From very small but complex creatures, to vast floating nets of simple unicellular organisms, size does not always correlate with complexity as you would expect.

14.00  
Pentrids, Jelploks and Carpet-Biters: a survey of some of the common mid-sized Saenian sea-creatures.

15.00  
Mysteries of the Reef: a light-hearted look at some of the more unusual reef structures. Originally thought to be evidence of some early maritime civilisation, now ruined and overgrown, modern analysis has proved the strange shapes are either purely organic outcroppings, or an organic layer growing on local rocks. They do make a nice environment for jelploks however!  
extract from a lecture schedule, New Morizia Dome tourist centre

Once considered a solitary creature, recent research suggests the jelplok may at times form small flocks, and is capable of some degree of social interaction. Certainly it seems clear they can recognise each other, and have some memory of previous interactions. It has even been suggested they engage at times in cooperative behaviour, however the evidence for this remains weak: at times, a number of them will gather together, pulling or pushing at the same rock, which could be an effort to transform their environment, creating more suitable shelters for themselves; as against this, they are quite frequently seen congregating on rocks of such size it would take several lifetimes to move them any appreciable distance, suggesting that this mysterious behaviour serves some other, as yet unknown, purpose: possibly it is some sort of mating display.  
from _Denizens of the Deep: Unusual Lifeforms of Alien Seas_

The purple tone intensified, grew darker. Somewhere above the sun was setting. It was tempting, so very tempting, to hurry, to rush things along with clumsy hands, fighting the weight of water above him, fighting the thickness of his gloves and the restrictions of his protective suit. But he was well trained for this, and carefully selected from the very best of the candidates: he would not fail now, he would not give way to haste or to the panic he could feel even now gnawing away at his resolve. 

Slowly, piece by piece, he replaced the broken parts, testing each stage carefully, making it as secure and unmovable as possible, carefully not thinking of the fading light, of the distance from air and safety, of how the damage could possibly have happened: there was nothing, nothing at all, here that could damage the energy collection system, or understand just the right place for sabotage. It was as an accident, nothing more, some structural weakness that had gone unobserved and unchecked until the worst possible moment. He was sure of it. He had been sure of it, up above. 

Now the light had faded to nothing, swallowed up by the dark water. Only little points of glittering light remained, glowing as the currents moved them, pretty and harmless, nothing to worry about. Nothing at all to worry about, nothing moving at all, except the phosphorescent nets and, where his lamp made a welcome pool of light, little darters that flitted to and fro, and the occasional pulsing lump of ruby jelly. 

Corporal Albaer swung his lantern round, letting the light pierce out in one direction then another: the very calmness of the scene served to unnerve him. He remembered poor Vissenta, who had stepped on what seemed a normal stretch of seabed, only to have it warp and curl beneath her feet, enveloping her, ripping her suit to pieces with its hidden spikes. Well, they had learnt to recognise carpet-biters now, and would not make the same mistake again. And the other predators were too small or too shy to be much of a risk.

Except, of course, the fearsome jelplok. Such a silly, friendly name, for the scrounge of the Saenian seas! And it had seemed a silly, friendly thing at first, a bobbing mass of big eyes and tendril-tentacles, somewhere between an octopus and a particularly harmless jellyfish. Not intelligent, not able to plan or coordinate and attack - not able even to comprehend attacks or coordination - and quite incapable of hurting anyone. 

He had seen what remained of Corporal Itri when he was brought back up. The strength of those tendrils must be incredible. And when the jelploks flocked together, winding round airpipes, pressing on masks, tearing away clothing until they could reach bare skin... 

Well, perhaps they were unintelligent, even if they were more dangerous than they seemed, but they had an unerring sense for the weak points in the divesuits, and the little scooter vehicles used for offshore exploration, and now there was the matter of the energy collection system. But he would not think about that now, not until he was safe again on land. He turned his light back on his work, and slotted the next piece gradually, carefully in place.

Behind him, in the dark water, the lights flickered and danced, blinking in and out of existence. And there, among them, a bigger but dimmer light, pulsing in different colours, writhing as though it were made mostly of tendrils, drifted closer on the current.  
from _The Romance of New Morizia_

My name is Dwirri. I hatched from an egg in the warm, coastal sea around Morizia atoll. When I hatched, I was very small.

At first, I lived with my fellow hatchlings. There were very many of us! Later, as I grew bigger, I began to explore further, and no longer stayed curled up with my siblings in my coral nursery.

Of course, it isn’t real coral, not the sort that came from earth, but it is like coral, and grows up in the sea in the same way. 

When I am an adult, I will be accepted into a flock of other jelploks. I will start to be able to change colours, and I will pick the colours I most like to be. Often I will cycle through many different shades of my favourite colours, following a complicated rhythm. I will use a similar, but not identical, rhythm to the rest of my flock, although my colours may be different. 

Some people think jelplok is not a dignified name for a creature that has been awarded sentient status. But I think jelplok is a nice, friendly name, and I don’t mind other children using it.  
from _A Child’s Guide To Galactic Lifeforms_

For many years the Saenians were the subject of fierce debate, not only between supporters of general sentient rights and the human first faction, but within the sentient rights movement. How intelligent, and how self-aware was one Saenian? In large groups, or smaller groups over many generations, they were clearly capable of extensive modifications to their environment, and many held that their notably complex ‘dance’ manoeuvres (and accompanying sequences of electromagnetic pulses) were either a type of art or a type of communication. But there was no proof, and no meaningful communication seemed possible. Nor was it clear whether intelligence resided in the social network itself, or in its individual constituents. 

It was only much later, after the development of neural-hybrid translators, that some degree of communication and understanding became possible, providing at last a definitive answer to the question. By which stage, of course, in practical and political terms the question had already been settled in favour of a limited presumption of personhood; but the Doctrine of Implied Self-Conception was originally an act of faith, and it was only long after it had been universally accepted that evidence for many of claims could be produced. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the evidence would ever have been forthcoming, had the Doctrine not been in place: the difficulty, expense and potential moral cost of neural-hybrids could not have been justified had it not been assumed there was something there capable of communicating.  
from _A Retrospective Study of Personhood_

All translators must create anew that which they claim to translate, and at best can say that their words in one language create a work similar in some way to a work created by others in another tongue. And this is so when one human translates for another, between two entirely human languages, and entirely human cultures. How then shall I proceed, who stand between two lifeforms, alien to each other in every way? At best I can say that the words I write convey to my mind much the same meaning, or at least something of the same meaning, as the colours and postures and pulses and scents of the Saenians, and likewise in reverse. But so much is lost. And can I truly say I understand, that I truly comprehend, that which I translate, or how my translation will be understood by others? It was the purpose for which I was created, and yet my creation leaves me neither the one thing nor the other, a delicate hybrid of two inmisciable things, an association of disparate parts that has, perhaps, only the illusion of consciousness.  
from _Notes on the Translation of Saenian Lyric Philosophy_


End file.
